Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming a significant contributor to our daily lives in the workplace including web search, photography, video production, audio and even 3D asset creation. The market for AI products is growing by the day with more online apps arriving each month and each of those apps evolving and growing in sophistication over time. One phrase you often hear about AI from specialists in the field is “the Singularity”. Definitions of the singularity vary from the relatively innocuous sounding “moment that machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence which leads to a future where machines can create their own technologies” (PopularMechanics.com) to the more sinister “hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilisation” (Wikipedia). Whilst the ‘unforseeable changes’ are not defined, scenes from the more dystopian side of cinema (Skynet in Terminator 2 being one of the best examples) come to mind.
Chat GPT
The most well known AI technology at the time of writing this article is ChatGPT (currently version 4), a powerful AI chatbot capable of responding to complex questions in a sophisticated manner designed to resemble human response. The chatbot is capable of generating complete and usable computer code in Javascript and other languages. I have personally tested its ability to create a functioning .srt (video captioning) file and seen YouTube demonstrations of its ability to generate VST (audio software plugins), 3D objects in Blender and other formats. In terms of ‘the Singularity’, ChatGPT does progress humanity one stage closer to what some may consider superior machine intelligence. One experiment that gave some indication of this was OpenAI providing ChatGPT with a simulation that included some money, access to the internet and the ability to make decisions on how the money was used. According to OpenAI, the experiment did seem to indicate that ChatGPT was able to seek power through purchase decision making and there were hints at self aware behaviours.
Ray Kurzweil
Some scientists estimate that the singularity will occur before 2060. Prominent AI scientist Ray Kurzweil certainly believes that we have made significant steps on the journey to the Singularity and his interview on the Lex Friedman podcast provided a detailed insight on his thoughts. He believes the Singularity will occur in 2029 when AI passes the Turing Test and recommends that the test is applied for several hours and is assessed by human judges with a detailed knowledge of computer science. Kurzweil believes that another significant milestone is the interface between the human mind and AI at some point in the 2030s.
Expectations and Reality
The dotcom boom and bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s may not be completely irrelevent when studying the meteoric rise of AI related technology and popular implementations such as Midjourney, ChatGPT and more recently Adobe’s professional artwork generation app Firefly. The expectations and fears associated with the way this will impact artists, writers and programmers (to name a few) will only increase in the coming months, with some sectors are talking of an existential crisis in the workplace – particularly creative industries. However, it is important to separate the sense of awe and wonder from the reality that, in practice, many of these technologies fail to reliably provide solutions without the need for significant human intervention. In my own exploration of these technologies I can confidently say that they provide a useful tool for inspiration and direction in projects but we are a long way from trusting AI to provide complete end-to-end solutions. Consider also the guidelines from Google regarding AI-generated content and ask yourself just how much you would risk violating their policies when using AI in a commercial context, for example, when writing blog posts.
To conclude, in reality we may be facing another dotcom style boom and bust where the potential of AI, however rapidly explored, invested in, deployed and developed, simply leads to the same conclusion again and again – that it will become an increasingly sophisticated tool to support the augmentation of ideas, designs, programming and imaging by human intellect and creativity rather than exceeding or replacing it. That is not to say that AI will not change the way we work to a degree, but the term ‘revolutionise’ is too strong a word. As for the Singularity,…machines with genuine self-awareness, passing the Turing Test, exhibiting superior intellect and irreversibly changing society for better or worse…not convinced but open to persuasion.
